In the art of circular knitting, it has been found that product fabrics as knitted and slit to form sheet goods characteristically display when transversely stretched a tendency to experience greater elongation transversely in central regions thereof than in side regions thereof. This problem is severe in the case of longitudinally patterned fabrics, particularly fabrics having a pattern repeat which is intended to be of constant width from pattern to pattern. So far as is known, the exact reason why such a differential transverse stretch characteristic occurs is unknown. Also, so far as is known, no means or technique is known for overcoming such characteristic so as to produce a sliver knit pile fabric having a longitudinally extending pattern which can be transversely expanded or stretched to a controlled extent without distoring the desired dimensional characteristics, particularly width characteristics, of the pattern formed in the fabric.